1. Western Forest Products Inc. Accounts Payable Solution
Western Forest Products is an integrated Canadian forest products company, managing timberlands and producing lumber in coastal British Columbia. Principal activities include timber harvesting, reforestation, sawmilling logs into lumber and wood chips, and value-added remanufacturing. WFP’s operations, employees and corporate facilities are located in coastal BC, while its products are sold in more than 20 countries worldwide
3500 employees
31 locations on Vancouver Island and lower mainland (2)
Very tough economy – restructuring
Contact was CIO (original), Director of Finance, AP Manager (for AP)

2. WFP AP Issues Over 2500 suppliers 700 invoices/day.
Invoices manually entered to generate “GL” code “Apron”
Entered into accounting system (JD Edwards)
“Apron” and invoices couriered to managers at each location to verify and approve expenditures
10% of manager’s day dealing with invoice approvals and tracking down who/what/where/why of invoice
Receive invoices via fax, , mail. All need to be entered manually into system.
No consistency or control

3. Old Process 3 full time accounts payable personnel
3x 43000/year = $129K/year
Courier service to shuttle all invoices/approvals between locations
31 sites with two weekly runs: $40 per site/week = $64480/year
Managers Time: 10% of day
4 hrs /week
208 hrs/year x 31 managers
K/year
$ /year in manager wages managing invoices
Process took week (s)
Total cost of old process = $379480/year

4. Working Solution
Invoices scanned in at accounting office or at MFP’s at remote locations.
Turned into PDF’s and funneled to the accounts payable system where they are OCR’d and based on “Zone OCRing” specific fields or information (such as GL code, date, supplier code, line item, postal code ect) are captured
The info is input to the data base and verified based on stored supplier info and cross referenced. If errors then human intervention is prompted. Manual data entry is now Automated Validation screens
Verified data entered into approvals process: s with line items, costs and suppliers are sent to managers for approval.
provides check box for approval/refusal and is sent back into system where if approved it automatically cuts check or in case where it is not approved invoice is moved up the escalation process.
All invoices and copy of checks are moved into archiving once paid. This provides simple search protocols to prove payment and closes loop.

5. New Process One accounts payable clerk: $43K/Year
5% of managers time: $37K/year
Our solution $110K/year
Total: $190K/year
Savings: $250K/year, ROI of 14 months

6. Software Components
Docushare CPX – advanced routing and approvals. Automated workflows.
Ascent Capture (Scanning/OCR), Virtual ReScan (Quality Assurance) and Xtrata Pro (Validates data and queries users when issue arise). All from Kofax (business partner)
Cost – 400K

7. Who are we looking for?
Companies: Medium and large business’ receiving 100’s invoices/day
Have difficulty finding, tracking or confirming date or payments
People: Accounts payable/receivable managers, controllers, accountants, CIO’s, COO’s and CFO’s

8. Elevator Speech Full automation intake and approvals process
Improved turn around time on invoice payments
Reduction/redeployment of staff
Improved customer/supplier experience- improved customer retention and loyalty.
Less managerial time required to validate expenses
Full records management and archiving

9. Questions How many invoices do you handle a day/week/month?
How long does it take to get a supplier cheque cut?
How labor intensive is your current process? Who is involved, ie managers, clerks ect.
How much of your managers time does this take?
How many AP clerks?
How long does it take to get answers back to customers/suppliers?
How often do issues arise that require someone to go through physical records?

10. AP Flo Video/Case Study Links
Computerworld Information Technology Awards Foundation - Laureate 2010
“Paperless office moves out of the realm of pulp fiction in 2010” –ZDNet
Case Study: studyhttp://docushare.xerox.com/partners/vars_68.html
Video: (5 minutes)